Thursday, 12 June 2014

Anyone who knows me or has
regularly perused my blog will be well aware that I’m a huge fan of the silent
comedy from the 1910s to 1930s. Of course this isn’t entirely true though. My love and
knowledge only extends as far as the two behemoths of the era, to Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Aside from the occasional foray into the likes of
Laurel and Hardy and non-Chaplin Keystone, my understanding is limited. For a
long time I’ve wanted to get a hold of some of the films of Harold Lloyd, the
man who probably came closest to Chaplin and Keaton both then and now.
Unfortunately, unlike my two comedy heroes, his oeuvre is harder to come by and
much more expensive. I’ve started then with what is in my opinion his best
known work; Safety Last! A film
famous for its iconic still of Lloyd hanging from a clock face several stories
up a skyscraper, I thought I’d start with the obvious and work my way back.

The movie opens very strongly
with a set up that seems to suggest that the lead character, named Harold Lloyd,
is behind bars and being visited by his sweetheart and a priest. In the
background, a hangman’s noose looms. As the camera zooms out though, we learn
that he’s merely behind a fence and is in fact awaiting the arrival of a train
that will take him to the big city in search of his fortune. Lloyd promises to
make good within the year in order that he and his girl (Mildred Davis) can
marry. The establishing scene expertly sets up the next sixty-five minutes by
introducing us to the characters and their motivations as well as giving us a
great sight gag. From then on, the film goes from strength to strength.

Wednesday, 9 April 2014

1947’s Out of the Past is widely considered to be one of the greatest
examples of 1940s film noir. Set around a convoluted plot, the film twists and
turns through double, triple and quadruple crosses, landing surprise blows on
its dumbstruck and occasionally confused audience. Based on the novel Build My Gallows High and originally
released in the UK
under the same title, the picture stars Robert Mitchum as freelance Private
Detective Jeff Bailey. He’s hired by rich and shady businessman Whit Sterling
(Kirk Douglas) to track down a dame, Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer) who Stirling alleges has disappeared with $40,000 of his
money. Told partly in flashback and with a voiceover to match that of Sunset Boulevard’s, the film twists and
turns like a twisty-turny thing, through several cities, two nations and a
long, albeit undisclosed, period of time.

It took me a little while to get
into Out of the Past but when I did,
I enjoyed it greatly. Unfortunately my patience wore off towards the end thanks
to the elaborate nature of the narrative. This isn’t a film I’d suggest
watching after a long day at the office and a couple of martinis inside your
stomach. Although a large part of the movie’s charm is its strong story, the
frequent double crossing did begin to confuse me as we crossed the hour mark.
This isn’t entirely a bad thing however as half the fun is in guessing who has
the upper hand and who will strike next.

Tuesday, 18 March 2014

It’s been ten years since
Jonathan Glazer’s last film and nearly a decade and a half since his wonderful
screen début Sexy Beast. His third
film, Under the Skin, is a dark and
chilling science fiction horror, loosely based on Michael Faber’s 2000 novel of
the same name. It stars Scarlett Johansson as an alien who preys on men, using
her siren like looks and charm to pull them towards the rocks and to their
demise. The movie is incredible, at times getting close to the best I’ve seen
in cinema. It veers wildly though towards the opposite extreme with passages of
nothingness which reminded me of the torrid time I had while watching Terrence
Malick’s The Tree of Life. Extremes exist
elsewhere too with sequences which wouldn’t look out of place in an art gallery
side by side with almost documentary style shooting, filmed with hidden
cameras.

The film opens with an abstract
scene, perhaps the formation of an eye or the creation of a being. It signals
birth or re-birth and sets us up for what is to come. From the very first
moments we know this is going to be unlike anything we’ve seen before and it
doesn’t disappoint in that regard. The opening establishes the link between the
known and unknown, creating tantalising glimpses into who or what we are about
to be confronted with before concluding on the recognisable image of an eye, at
first still, then moving, depicting consciousness. Although it – or she – may
well be aware of her surroundings, the alien shows no emotion regarding what
she sees. She’s a cold machine, showing not even contempt for her victims.
She’s focussed and has a singular task. In one of the film’s most horrifying
scenes, a baby is left stranded on a beach. Though screeching for help, she’s
ignored by the strange visitor who acts coldly, even blindly to the presence of
the child. As humans we want to protect and mother the infant but to the alien,
its screams don’t even register. It’s a scene that sent chills down my spine.

Sunday, 16 February 2014

Set in Nazi occupied France, Inglourious Basterds is a film that took
Quentin Tarantino over a decade to write and produce. Multiple plot threads, an
ever expanding script and difficulty with the movie’s conclusion meant that
from first to final draft, a decade had elapsed. The completed script is one of
pure Tarantino penmanship. Featuring ideas of revenge, duplicity and malice
while scattered with pop references, albeit from a different era, Inglouious Basterds is as Tarantino as a
Mexican stand-off in a Big Kahuna Burger Restaurant. Nominated for eight Academy
Awards and taking over $320 million worldwide, it is also one of the director’s
most successful to date.

Split into five chapters, the
film focuses on the efforts of two sets of people to bring down the Third
Reich. Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) is a young Jewish woman who, early in
the film, escapes death at the hands of the gifted ‘Jew Hunter’ Hans Landa
(Christoph Waltz). Having dodged an early grave, Shosanna relocates to Paris where she runs a
small cinema which we shall come back to later. Meanwhile, elsewhere in France, the
Basterds, a group of American Jewish soldiers, led by Lieutenant Aldo Raine
(Brad Pitt) are scouring the countryside in search of Nazis to bludgeon and
scalp. When the Basterds hear that the entire Nazi high command will be in Paris for the Premier of
Goebbels latest propaganda film, they set in motion a plan to end the war the
very same night.

Sunday, 9 February 2014

Walt Disney Animation Studios 52nd
feature and my personal favourite for nearly twenty years, Wreck-It Ralph is a love letter to the video game. Expertly combining
cutting edge animation with 8-bit, 2D and classic arcade styles, the film is
chock full of references and in jokes to the thirty or so years of the video
games industry which it celebrates. The film tells the story of an arcade game
villain who wants to be liked and leaves his own game, travelling to others in
the hope of winning a medal. It’s this medal that he hopes will aid his
inclusion with the good guys of his own game, Fix-It Felix, Jr. While outside this game, he enters the candy
themed cart game Sugar Rush in which
he meets a glitch who has struggles of her own.

Wreck-It Ralph is a sweet and funny film that rewards concentration
and multiple watches but doesn’t alienate the casual viewer or gamer. As well
as being targeted at those with specific game knowledge, it also features a
surprisingly emotional plot and some likeable and well drawn characters. It
cleverly appeals to both boys and girls with its combination of gender centric
games and characters while mums and dads will get a lot of the references to
gaming history that will go over the heads of younger audience members.

Saturday, 1 February 2014

All About Eve is a 1950 drama that for nearly fifty years stood as
the lone record holder for most Academy Award nominations. At the 23rd
Academy Awards it was nominated for a total of fourteen awards, a feat
unmatched until Titanic equalled it
in 1997. The film wouldn’t be a successful as James Cameron’s sprawling, water
based epic however and won just six of it’s nominations including the important
Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Sixty four years on and today
I watched the film for the first time to see what all the fuss is about. My
immediate impression upon completing the film was that of surprise for its
multiple nominations and victories but stepping back a little, the film
features a lot to like, not least some fantastic writing and superb acting
performances.

The film strangely shares many
themes with another 1950 release, Sunset Boulevard, and indeed the two would battle it out in eight of the
categories at the Oscar’s ceremony I just spoke of. Another film that All About Eve congers memories of is
stranger still and that is Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls.
All three movies feature stories about revered and ageing stars who are or at
least feel threatened by perkier, younger women. Here, the marvellous Bette
Davis plays Broadway star Margot Channing, a talented actress with an outwardly
sense of entitlement but who is inwardly frail and uneasy, worried for her
place in the theatre world. Her fears come to the forefront of her mind when
she is confronted with the attributes and ambitions of Eve Harrington (Ann
Baxter). Harrington begins the film as a timid and star struck young girl but
what lurks beneath her downtrodden and excited appearance is a viciously
ambitious starlet.

Wednesday, 22 January 2014

Aningaaq is a short companion piece to the award winning Gravity that was written and directed by
Jonás Cuarón, son of Alfonso Cuarón. I should make it clear right away that
this review will feature spoilers so if you haven’t seen Gravity then you may not wish to continue. Have you left? Good. Aningaaq is a seven minute short that
shows a scene in Gravity from the
reverse angle. Having given up aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule, Dr. Ryan Stone
(Sandra Bullock) begins to receive a faint radio transmission. Initially
believing it to originate from a Chinese Space Station, she soon realises it’s
in fact coming from Earth. This film shows us the other side of the
conversation the two people have; Stone, miles above Earth on the verge of
death and Aningaaq, an Inuit
fisherman on a frozen fjord.

Aningaaq begins with a long, slow panning shot which depicts the
inhospitable icy surroundings in which the Inuit fisherman finds himself
living. This connects beautifully with the story of Gravity in that both characters are separated from their species by
many miles and life snatching surroundings. Both films share the same eerie
silence, further promoting the idea of bleakness and exposure. Unlike the
blackness of space though, Aningaaq is shown in a near white out, the exact
opposite of Dr. Stone.

Friday, 17 January 2014

Martin Scorsese’s latest motion
picture comes hurling towards its audience as though thrown from an amusement
park ride. Loud, vulgar and covered in vomit, it’s the director’s most
controversial movie in years, not to mention his longest and perhaps his most
unabashed. The auteur is proving that even into his seventies he still has the
power to enthral, entertain and repulse with a wild film about greed and intemperance.
The Wolf of Wall Street is based on
the memoir of the same name written by Jordan Belfort, a former New York stockbroker who
lived a life filled with excess thanks to his shady stock market dealings in
the 1980s and 90s.

Joining Scorsese for a fifth time
as lead actor is Leonardo DiCaprio who plays Belfort with all the grace, charm and
sophistication you expect from a Wall Street swindler. DiCaprio is nasty, vile,
cruel and disgusting and yet you can’t help love both him and the character as
you watch him snort cocaine from a hooker’s anus or throw hundred dollar bills
in the trash. He’s made it, he’s living the American dream and he’s loving
every minute of it. Criticism has come from the fact that the central character
suffers no real comeuppance, no fall from grace. I disagree slightly with this
but would also argue that Scorsese and screenwriter Terrance Winter are showing
you how it is. The bad guy doesn’t always lose and in this case, he might not
win all the time but it makes no difference. You know he’s a dick and you know
he’s in the wrong but you also know that you want what he’s got.

A feel good sleeper hit, Good Vibrations is based on the life of Belfast’s godfather of
punk Terri Hooley. Set during the 1970s and 80s with civil war raging across Northern Ireland,
Hooley set himself apart from the political and religious fighting by opening a
record shop in the troubled capital. Maintaining neutrality and encouraging the
same, he drew people from both sides together through their shared love of
music before becoming an instrumental figure in the burgeoning punk scene with
Good Vibrations Records, a small label that signed the likes of Rudi, The
Outcasts and The Undertones.

Good Vibrations didn’t get a huge release back in March 2013 and it
deserves more attention that it’s been getting since. It’s a charming, funny
and engaging film which put a smile on my face and helped me look beyond Belfast’s infamous past.

Saturday, 11 January 2014

A winner of five Academy Awards
including Best Picture, The French
Connection is a taught and edgy police thriller starring Gene Hackman in
the role that won him the first of his two Oscars. The film is inspired by the
book of the same name and blends fact and fiction to bring a major drug
smuggling operation to the big screen. Detectives Jimmy ‘Popeye’ Doyle
(Hackman) and Buddy ‘Cloudy’ Russo (Roy Scheider) uncover a plot to smuggle a
large quantity of heroin from France
to the East Coast of the USA
and tail leads, battle assassins and fight their bosses in an attempt to bring
the traffickers down.

Early scenes criss-cross the
Atlantic between New York City and Marseilles where the protagonists are either
setting up to smuggle drugs or carrying out street busts. A few of the opening
scenes gave me eye strain due to the slightly juddery hand held style of camera
work used by Director William Friedkin. Once I was over the initial
disorientation that the camera work gave me though, I was able to appreciate
the almost documentary style of realism that Friedkin captures. He gets right
to the heart of the action with cameras placed in close quarters to the actors
when necessary but also stands back at times, delivering long tracking or panning
shots as the characters play a game of cat and mouse through the streets of New York.

Sunday, 8 December 2013

The Great Dictator saw Charlie Chaplin return to the screen
following an absence of four years since 1936’s Modern Times. It also marked his first true talkie, a departure
from the silent cinema which had for a time made him the most famous person on
the planet. From a script written in 1938-39, The Great Dictator satirised the Fascist regimes of Italy and Germany and in particular the
moustache stealing Adolph Hitler. Despite pre-production condemnation from
Hollywood and a Hitler appeasing British Government, the film which was
financed solely by Chaplin himself became a huge critical and commercial
success, no doubt spurred on by its staggered release in 1940-41 by which time
Europe and then the whole world was at war.

Chaplin who had by this time
become increasingly political in his film making can be considered as somewhat
of a visionary in his approach to the film. While writing the script much of
the world was seduced by Hitler and saw him and his Nazi Party as the antidote
to the spread of Communism. His strong, conservative Germany
formed a vital buffer between the Soviet Union
and the West and became an important trading partner once again. While many
politicians were unable to see beyond Hitler’s immeasurable charisma, Chaplin focussed
his film on those in the firing line of Hitler’s new Europe,
specifically the Jews.

Wednesday, 24 July 2013

Having dipped my toe into the
murky waters of the French New Wave with Breathless last week, I’m now ankle deep but the water is no clearer. I enjoy exploring
new cinematic avenues, whether it be silent comedy, Italian horror or Korean
thrillers but I’ve never had so much difficulty in expressing myself with the
written word as I’m having while trying to compose my thoughts about the films
of Jean-Luc Godard. My Life to Live
or Vivre sa vie in its original
French is a film in twelve chapters about a young Parisian woman who dreams of
becoming an actress but is drawn into prostitution when money becomes ever more
illusive. Anna Karina, Godard’s then wife, stars in the central role and puts
in a mesmerising performance in a film which I struggled to enjoy but couldn’t
take my eyes off.

From what little I’ve seen of
Godard’s canon, I think it’s fair to say that he’s a director with an eye for
beauty. The images he crates are sumptuous and filled with splendour despite
the slightly crinkled, low budget style of film making in which he partakes. Breathlesswas amongst the best looking
films I’ve seen while My Life to Live
exerts its beauty in a steadier, more measured manner, lingering on beauty
rather than allowing it to rush by. At the centre of all this is Anna Karina
herself, a woman whose eyes flash at the screen in such a way as to make her
audience melt.

Sunday, 21 July 2013

I started to really get into
cinema when I was at university after first watching a couple of Martin
Scorsese’s early movies. I was dumbstruck by the guerrilla style of Mean Streets and easy flow and strange editing of Taxi Driver as well as the way that both
movies captured a time and place which although I’d never personally
experienced, felt familiar. In the near decade since then I’ve expanded my
cinematic experiences and ventured down many genre avenues, finding much that
to like. It’s taken me to my late twenties though to venture towards The French
New Wave, a period and collection of film makers who inspired those early
Scorsese pictures perhaps more than anything else.

Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless or À bout de souffle in its native France
is one of the most famous examples of the New Wave films which steamed across
the Atlantic in the late 1950s and into the 60s,
influencing the next generation of American directors. The influence follows a
similar pattern to British rock music of the period as Godard and his
compatriots François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer and others were themselves being
influenced by what they saw in American cinema. It’s almost as though the
French put their own spin on what they saw in Hollywood and then this was subsequently
appropriated and re-Americanised by ‘movie brats’ of the 70s.

Saturday, 20 July 2013

With the final instalment of ‘The
Cornetto’ trilogy, writers Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright have bought us a film
about what it means to move on and grow up. It’s an apt theme as the film
itself is by far the most grown up and mature work the pair have produced so
far. Pegg stars as Gary King, a man-child stuck in the past who brings together
his childhood friends to attempt a re-enactment of a fateful night over twenty
years ago when they tried but failed to complete the ‘Golden Mile’, a twelve
stop pub crawl through their home town. Although the friends are unsure, they
accompany Gary
but what starts as a trip down memory lane, turns into something quite
unexpected when it is revealed that the people of Newton Haven have been taken
over by an unknown force.

I’m not a huge fan of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, the other films in this loose
trilogy but I found them both entertaining. I personally think that The World’s End is the best film of the three but probably isn’t the
funniest. It’s a more measured, thought provoking film which strangely evokes
parallels in the audience’s lives while providing entertaining moments along
the way as well as the odd laugh. Pegg and Wright appear to have recognised
that their audience has grown with their films and they suitably include themes
which you wouldn’t find in their earlier work. The movie reminded me of Toy Story 3. That film included ideas
about ageing and one’s place in the world after the fun and laughter of the
first two films. This instalment is pitched in a similar way.

Monday, 15 July 2013

The Edukators is a sociological thriller about three young
anti-capitalists who get in way over their heads after a botched break-in.
Peter (Stipe Erceg) and Jan (Daniel Brühl) are a pair of idealistic young
wannabe revolutionaries, living in near squalor in the centre of Berlin. In the evenings
they scope out large houses in the suburbs which they break into. Rather than
stealing what they find inside, the pair instead moves the furniture and
expensive consumer items around, messing with the minds of the rich inhabitants
and leaving a note saying something along the lines of “Your days of plenty are
coming to an end”. They call themselves ‘The Edukators’. With Peter in Barcelona, Jan becomes
friendlier with Peter’s girlfriend Jule (Julia Jentsch) after the pair had
previously been rather standoffish with each other. Jule explains how her life
is being ruined by a debt owed to a rich man following a car crash and Jan
decides to do something about it, bringing Jule into ‘The Edukators’ without Peter’s
knowledge.

The Edukators is a fascinating thriller which bought out the old
Commie in me. I was on the group’s side, finding myself nodding along to their
rants about consumerism and third world debt while I sat on my leather sofa,
watching my flat screen TV. The film bought out something in me which I’ve lost
in recent years, my youthful anger at the world. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still
angry but these days my anger is focussed at religion and stupidity rather than
poverty and injustice. This movie bought that back.

Tuesday, 9 July 2013

Nominated for three Academy
Awards, 1972’s Deliverance is an
influential thriller set along the Chattooga
River in Georgia. For men from Atlanta set
off into the wilderness to take a canoe trip down a portion of river which is
soon to be hundreds of feet below a newly dammed lake. Their trip takes a
decidedly and unexpectedly dangerous turn when some of the locals take a
disliking to the party. Famous for a distressing scene of rape, the movie is
much harder than I expected and must have rattled censors forty years ago. As
well as the distress caused by these and other scenes, there is also great
beauty to be found in the landscape and it’s captured wonderfully by Director
John Boorman.

The movie features what we’d
consider today to be an all-star cast with Hollywood
heavyweights Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds leading the cast. Ned Beatty makes
his screen debut alongside Ronny Cox, also a first time screen actor here. The
acting is great throughout and the characters are well defined from the start.
From the very first scene the audience is made aware of exactly who is who and
what their main traits are. This helps to get the film off to a good start as
well as easing the audience in.

Monday, 24 June 2013

World War Z or World War Z
as it’s pronounced here in the UK
is a zombie apocalypse movie based on the 2006 novel of the same name. It takes
the traditional ideas of a zombie movie and expands them to a global scale,
telling at the same time the story of a single Philadelphian family whose
patriarch, ex UN investigator Gerry
Lane (Brad Pitt), is tasked with travelling the
globe in search of the outbreaks origin, with the hope of discovering a cure.
The movie’s production has been one of the most troubled in recent years with
an ambitious shooting schedule and numerous re-writes and re-shoots, even up to
the end of 2012, taking the movie’s budget up to around the $200 million mark.
If the busy screening, star appeal and word of mouth I’ve already encountered
are anything to go by though, the movie is sure to make a very tidy profit
within the next couple of weeks.

I try to avoid reviews before I
write my own in case they inform my opinion but I’d heard a couple of mixed
verdicts before seeing this movie. Coupled with the production troubles, I
wasn’t expecting a brilliant film. I was pleasantly surprised then by World War Z (Z) as it excited,
entertained and scared me from start to finish.

Friday, 7 June 2013

A few years ago, to me the name
Alfred Hitchcock meant that old guy who was famous for making movies that I’d
never seen. It took me far too long to watch any of his films but I’ve since
been making up for this by watching as many as I can over the last couple of
years. What amazes me each time is that almost every film I’ve seen has been at
least in part brilliant. Even those which I’m not so mad on often contain a
couple of shots or scenes which astound my eyes and he rarely if ever fails to
thrill. The latest Hitchcock to flash excitedly in front of my eyes is his 1942
spy thriller, Saboteur. Production on
the movie began just two weeks after the attack on Pearl
Harbor and patriotism, symbolism and propaganda run right the way
through the picture in every scene and character.

Barry Kane (Robert Cummings) is
an aircraft factory worker from Southern California.
Following a fire at the plant, in which his good friend dies, the evidence
leads detectives to believe that Kane is responsible and he becomes a wanted
man, travelling across the country in a bid to unveil the German spy ring that
he believes is the true culprit. Along the way he becomes acquainted with
Patricia Martin (Pricilla Lane),
a model and patriot who attempts to turn the wanted man in time and time again.
Their travels lead them to the hornet’s nest in New York City where the suspected spies are
planning their latest piece of sabotage.

Sunday, 2 June 2013

F.W. Murnau’s 1930 film City Girl was the third of just four
that the German cinematic pioneer made in Hollywood.
With 1928’s 4 Devils among the
thousands of lost films from the period, we only have three left from the
Director who in his home land made such iconic movies as Nosferatu and The Last Laugh.
City Girl shares many themes with his
masterpiece Sunrise in that it is about love and the
struggle between rural life and urbanisation.

Lem Tustine (Charles Farrell) is
sent from his Minnesota farm to Chicago by his
overbearing father to sell their wheat crop. While in the big city, the country
boy meets and falls in love with a city waitress called Kate (Mary Duncan). Lem
sells the family crop, but for a lower price than his father desired and brings
his new bride back to the farm to meet his parents. Kate soon discovers that
life in the country isn’t all she expected it to be and with leering men much
the same as in the city and a father-in-law who distrusts her, she begins to
think she’s made a huge mistake.

Thursday, 30 May 2013

Despite initial commercial
failure, True Romance’s strong
performances and savvy script have made it a cult classic. Written by Quentin
Tarantino and Roger Avery before the release of Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino once intended to direct the film too but
eventually sold the script after losing interest. Tony Scott took over in the
director’s chair and threw out Tarantino’s non-linear storyline in favour of a
more traditional linear approach but the bulk of Tarantino’s story remained.
The film features a central love story which gets tangled up in the worlds of
drugs, organised crime and Hollywood
before untangling itself in a hail of bullets following a very Tarantino-esque
Mexican Standoff.

The movie is famous for its cast
which rivals any in cinema history. Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette star
as the young couple who find love at a triple bill Kung Fu movie night but are
joined on screen by a vast array of the great and good of their profession.
Names and faces recognisable to all include Michael Rapaport, Dennis Hopper,
Brad Pitt, Samuel L. Jackson, James Gandolfini, Gary Oldman, Val Kilmer, Chris
Penn, Tom Sizemore, Victor Argo and Christopher Walken. I’m struggling to think
of any cast which matches the one assembled here and if you have a suggestion,
I’d love to hear it.